Security and Accountability for Every Port Act

SECURITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR EVERY PORT ACT--Continued -- (Senate - September 12, 2006)

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AMENDMENT NO. 4936

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss Senator HARRY REID's amendment, the Real Security Act. This is a comprehensive plan for making our Nation safer and making true progress in the war on terror.

I would argue that despite continued upbeat assessments by the President, there is growing evidence that we need to change course--not cut and run, but change course, regroup, and reassess our progress in Iraq, in the global war on terror, and in the area of homeland security. I believe an evaluation would lead to the realization that changes need to be made and that a step in the right direction would be to implement measures that are included in Senator Reid's amendment.

I would like to focus on just a couple of aspects of Senator HARRY REID's proposal, which is entitled the ``Real Security Act,'' those dealing particularly with Afghanistan and Iraq.

Reports indicate that we may be losing ground in Afghanistan, the initial proper focus of the war on terror. Afghanistan was the locale of the Taliban. They were aiding and abetting al-Qaida and bin Laden, and we, by unanimous approval of this Congress and the Senate, gave the President the authority to launch offensive operations there. Those operations were successful. But then, before the entire success was secured, the focus of this administration turned away to a pre-Ð9/11 project: regime change in Iraq.

In the intervening years, we have lost ground in Afghanistan. The Taliban has regrouped and rearmed, and this spring they mounted the toughest resistance since 2001. Suicide attacks, which once were unknown in Afghanistan, have more than doubled this year.

Almost 5 years after the U.S. invasion, only half the money pledged by the international community to rebuild Afghanistan has been delivered and effectively spent. As Afghanistan's Ambassador to the United States has said:

We will not be able to stabilize the country if we don't build up the domestic security forces and have development in the countryside. Had we invested more in development, we would have less security problems today.

I have traveled to Afghanistan on a number of occasions. One of the problems we have is moving outside of Kabul, the capital, and creating a governmental presence, an Afghani governmental presence, in the countryside. We are trying vigorously to disrupt the production of poppies and opium, but that is hard in a society in which that cash crop is easy to move around, and it is quite lucrative. It is harder to move around other agricultural staples because there are no roads and irrigation is difficult.

If we had, as the Ambassador suggested, focused more resources and attention more promptly on development, we might have a much more benign climate in which to deal with a resurgent Taliban.

Without viable alternatives, there are scores of problems in Afghanistan. Sixty percent of the country is still without electricity, 80 percent is without potable water, and the unemployment rate is 40 percent. These are features which tend to support angry, disappointed young men, particularly, who are easy targets for those fanatics who would try to sway them into attacking security forces of both the Afghani Government and the United States. Without viable alternatives in terms of jobs and economic progress, it is easy to see how some turn to growing poppies, to providing support for this underground economy. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan just produced a record poppy crop, enough for 6,100 tons of opium--one-third more than the world's demand for heroin. These harvests fund the

Taliban fighters who fuel the fighting in Afghanistan and terrorists around the world.

Section 301 of Senator Harry Reid's amendment calls for a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, focusing on economic and developmental assistance, along with security assistance. That is the right plan.

I have had the occasion to visit with our commanders in the field, and we asked them about additional forces, and we asked them about additional military hardware. They will say: We could use that, but I can tell you something we know we need right now; that is, economic development to give the people of Afghanistan confidence in their Government and hope for the future. Confidence and hope is one of the best anecdotes to the kind of regime the Taliban is trying to impose again in Afghanistan.

Last night, as he addressed the Nation, President Bush stated:

The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad.

Two weeks ago in Salt Lake City, the President said:

America has a clear strategy to help the Iraqi people protect their new freedom and build a democracy that can govern itself and sustain itself and defend itself. ..... We will stay the course.

Yesterday, the Government Accounting Office, in testimony before the House Committee on Government Reform, provided a grim assessment of the Iraq security situation. GAO found, in their words:

Since June 2003, the overall security conditions in Iraq have deteriorated and grown more complex, as evidenced by increased numbers of attacks and Sunni/Shia sectarian strife which has grown since the February 2006 bombing in Samarra. Attacks against the coalition and its Iraqi partners reached an all-time high during July 2006. The deteriorating conditions threaten the progress of U.S. and international efforts to assist Iraq in the political and economic areas.

A New York Times story yesterday entitled ``Deal on a Constitution for Iraq is Teetering'' details how Shia and Sunnis failed once again over the weekend to reach an agreement on changes to the Constitution which would allow for a truly inclusive government.

Also yesterday, the Washington Post reported that on August 16, COL Pete Devlin, the Marine Corps chief of intelligence in Iraq, filed a classified report about Iraq's Al Anbar Province, which includes the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. This province borders Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Colonel Devlin has been stationed in Iraq for 7 months and is considered by his fellow officers to be one of the best who is ``careful and straightforward.'' An army officer in Iraq familiar with the report says he considers it accurate. ``It is best characterized as `realistic,' '' he said.

This report, while one of the first negative reports filed by a military officer, echoes several years of pessimistic CIA assessments of the province. The report is classified, so there are no direct quotes; however, those who are familiar with the report state that the assessment is dire. As the Washington Post summarized:

One Marine officer called it ``very pessimistic.'' Another person familiar with the report said it describes Anbar as beyond repair; a third said it includes that the United States has lost in Anbar.

The document reportedly states that there are no functioning Iraqi Government institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq, which has become the province's most significant political force.

One Army officer summarized the situation in Anbar province with the following:

We haven't been defeated militarily, but we have been defeated politically--and that's where wars are won and lost.

I visited Fallujah in March 2005 with General Abizaid. At that time, there was one State Department official there and no representatives from other agencies. That State Department official was tired and overworked. He was doing a remarkable job, both in terms of exposing himself to dangers and working tirelessly to try to give a political mentoring to the Iraqi authorities. He was desperate for assistance. At that time, he said he didn't think there was another big fight in Iraq unless the politics broke down and that it was a big year for politics. Clearly, more civilian assistance was key. My first visit was in 2005. I revisited the province this July. That same State Department official was still there, still doing a remarkable job, and still weathering the dangers and putting in the long hours to try to make a difference. Sixteen months since my last visit, and he was still the only civilian representative in Fallujah. He was even more tired. He said he believes the Marines have accomplished all they can reasonably be expected to accomplish. They are quickly running out of a mission. He felt it was time to see if the Iraqi forces could perform without the Marines, if the Iraqi Government could support their troops in the field and whether sectarian divisions were so acute that they would prevent the Iraqis from forging even minimal political cohesion.

In his view, the United States was currently in a holding pattern, delaying the inevitable day when the Iraqis must step forward and, in the meantime, our forces are suffering additional casualties.

These are the views of those on the ground in Fallujah, and they are representative of a larger problem this administration has had since the beginning of the war in Iraq. There was simply no postwar planning. While this administration has been focused exclusively on our military forces in Iraq, the reconstruction of the Iraqi infrastructure and economy has been virtually ignored. Iraqi reconstruction funds have been depleted with only a fraction of needed projects completed. The ability of the United States to aid in ministerial capacity building is hobbled by the lack of U.S. civilian experts in Iraq. In fact, because of the shortage of appropriate civilian advisers, the military is providing personnel on a case-by-case basis to help mentor civilian ministries.

Clearly, the lack of emphasis on reconstruction is having a dire effect on progress in Iraq. Tired of 3 years without adequate security or services, Iraqi professionals are leaving the country. Those who remain do not trust or feel invested in the new Government. Frustration with services and lack of employment opportunities means angry young men join militias instead of supporting their Government. Lieutenant General Chiarelli, Commanding General of the Multi-National Corps of Iraq, told me in July that unless we devote renewed attention and additional resources to the economic reconstruction of Iraq and the development of governmental capacity, the emergence of capable Iraqi forces will not be decisive. We can train an Army, but unless we have the ministries to support that Army, unless we have a police system and a judicial system that can give individual Iraqis a sense of both security and the hope of justice, simply having an Iraqi Army in the field will not be decisive to the ultimate challenge of stabilizing Iraq.

I, and many of my colleagues, have made it clear to the administration that several steps can and should be taken immediately to address this situation.

The administration should secure fulfillment of international pledges to provide economic support to Iraq. We are spending billions and billions of dollars a month. The American people cannot indefinitely spend this kind of effort without support from our international partners. We cannot meet all of the demands for reconstruction. In fact, we should insist, and this Government should be effective, in securing the already pledged funds, so that at least we have another chance--and maybe we can do it right this time--to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq to a point at least that individual Iraqis feel they will have a minimal amount of electricity, hopefully, more than that; that they will feel secure in terms of access to health care and to those things that give them the sense that their Government can succeed, and they should risk, in some cases, their lives to make that Government succeed. That is not the situation today in Iraq.

The administration should work with Iraqis to create a master list of necessary reconstruction projects with estimated funding and timelines. Funding for such projects should be a priority in the President's budget. We invested a lot of money, and we made a lot of contractors rich by building huge projects. General Chiarelli has been quoted several times talking about a huge water project in Sadr City was a model of engineering. There was only one problem: There was no distribution system, so it became the largest and most expensive water fountain in the world. He took his own resources, as a division commander, took some PVC piping and at least got some water out into the neighborhoods. That is the type of project that will make progress in Iraq.

Time is running out. We have to refocus ourselves on these types of efforts. We should assign these projects to the military, the Army Corps of Engineers, USAID, and private contractors, but we have to make sure that these private contractors are willing to go out and do the work, not simply to bill for the work. We have examples where scores of health clinics were supposedly built, and it has been discovered that those health clinics have not been built, and those that have, the few, are inadequate. In fact, I have seen films, videos of raw sewage in the operating rooms of the supposedly new and improved health clinics.

The administration should work with the Iraqis to establish target efforts to increase employment in order to provide young men an alternative to joining the militia. One of the things that is being done now on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis under the leadership of General Chiarelli is, after securing the neighborhood, now we are moving in, searching, taking out the weapons, trying to disrupt the cells of terrorists and others but then putting people to work with simple tasks, such as picking up trash and giving them some money, giving them a sense of hope, and improving the environment in these communities. We have to do more of that: putting people to work.

The administration should provide increased incentives and funding to attract large numbers of volunteers from the Department of State, Agriculture, Justice, and Commerce to serve in Iraq. The President is fond of reminding the American people that we are a country at war. But this is not an administration at war; it is a Department of Defense at war. We are seeing soldiers and marines sent back to Iraq for the third time and some for the fourth time. But where is the mobilization of all of our power, our State Department experts, our agriculture experts, our Justice Department experts? That is the great fight we are facing today in Iraq. The military, through the loss of lives and through the wounded of so many Americans, are buying this Government the time to work with the Iraqi Government to build capacity, to build infrastructure. But we are not using that time because, once again, despite the President's claim that this is a Nation at war, this is not an administration at war. And until we mobilize all of our resources, we are not going to be able, I think successfully, to meet the challenges of stabilizing Iraq.

Last year, the Secretary of State talked about provincial reconstruction teams which would be spread throughout Iraq. So far, we have not fully deployed sufficient numbers of these teams to do the job. It made for a good speech line last fall. It hasn't happened yet, and it is overdue.

Section E of Senator Reid's amendment calls for a new direction for Iraq and expresses the sense of Congress that Iraq should work for an inclusive government and disarm the militias, diffusing the sectarian violence. These militias are becoming a critical and dangerous aspect of the situation in Iraq, and unless the Iraqi Government is able to deal with these militias successfully, the Iraqi Government will be compromised and incapable of effectively governing their country.

Today, and for the last 2 days, we have been looking at a situation where the Iraqi Assembly is debating whether they want to regionalize the country--break it up. Shia representatives, led by Hakim and the Badr organization, are pushing for a legislative approach that will essentially provide the southern part of Iraq and the northern part of Iraq with their autonomy, leaving the center autonomous but desperately poor. It is raising the fears of the Sunni community. But the battle is between not just Sunnis and Shias but within the Shias because, on the other side, Moqtada al-Sadr and his militia are urging that the regionalization plan be dropped. This is what is going on in Iraq. It is not international terrorists plotting to attack us from there; it is the sectarian struggle for power of who will run that country, and we are caught in the middle of it.

That is why Senator HARRY REID's proposal is so sensible. It talks about redeploying our forces, reinvesting again and is perhaps the last chance we will get to provide the Government of Iraq with the tools and the mentoring so that they can provide their people with basic services and basic security.

I hope we can rally around and support this amendment because it represents not only a strong policy for America but a smart policy for America. I hope that when Senator Reid's proposal comes up for a vote, it is supported. It is one thing to go around the country and make speeches about staying the course, and it is something else to provide the resources, to provide the support, to provide the relief for our military that will give them a chance to succeed and give the Iraqis a chance to succeed. So I urge passage, when it is called for a vote, of the Harry Reid amendment.

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